Reader's Watchdog: Help is nearing, slowly, for Winterset widow, 87

Routine issues delay construction of longtime library worker's home

Sep. 8, 2012

Violet Ross stands in the living room of her Winterset home. A new home is being built for her next door, but with the charitable project's biggest cheerleader having moved away, work on the project has slowed. / David Purdy/ The Register

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About VA survivor benefits

For more information about veterans survivor benefits, call 800-827-1000 or go to www.va.gov. All Iowa counties have a veterans service officer in the field who should be able to assist with applications. Maria Yuhas says volunteers need materials to build Violet Ross’ deck and porch. For more information, call her at Winterset High School at 515-462-3320.

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WINTERSET, IA. — On the outside, Violet Ross’s 147-year-old home on John Wayne Drive appears like the 87-year-old widow herself: weathered and gray, broken in places, but still standing.

It is the inside that gives pause.

For one thing, the heat — and the cold — can be unbearable. Her only relief this record-breaking summer has been provided by a small fan, which she also uses in the winter to move hot air because the blower on the furnace conked out last year.

The ceiling on the second floor caved in after a heavy rain, leaving a heap of plaster on her kitchen floor. Violet can’t climb the steps anyway, so she is confined to the living room and kitchen.

You smell Kit, the cat, before you see him maneuvering among the piles of papers, canned soup, clothes and other clutter that cover every surface. As Violet’s good friend and caretaker, Max Grudzinski, said: “You could lose a Great Dane on her kitchen table.”

It was Grudzinski who called The Des Moines Register Reader’s Watchdog, trying to find out what was holding up progress on the new house being built next to Violet’s old place.

The ambitious project was the brainchild last year of former school Superintendent Mike Wells and a group of particularly compassionate high school students, several of whom are old enough to remember Violet during the roughly 20 years she worked at the local library.

Dubbed the Ivy League, the school group jumpstarted fundraising for a new house and enlisted civic groups around town. Other students involved in building and trades classes helped erect the frame and do electrical work, which was overseen as part of a job-training program by licensed professionals who volunteered their time.

By summer’s start, a host of others — church youth groups, the Chamber of Commerce, businesses, the Cattlemen’s Association — were involved, donating labor, flooring and cabinetry, furnace and air conditioning, kitchen appliances, roofing supplies and landscaping materials.

But by many accounts, progress slowed after Wells, the project’s biggest cheerleader, took a new job as superintendent in Cedar Falls that began in July. About $27,000 was raised — including $10,000 in low-income housing funds from the city, a small Keep Iowa Beautiful grant and funds from the Greater Madison County Community Foundation — but by last month, the funds had dwindled to a few thousand.

You can’t fault Grudzinski for worrying. A friend of Violet’s from her library days, she took the widow to the hospital more than a year and a half ago with a broken shoulder and — seeing she wasn’t getting assistance elsewhere — hasn’t stopped helping.

Grudzinski got Kit neutered, invited Violet into her house during the summer when temperatures topped 100 and has gotten her to the local Fareway every week. She brings baskets of heirloom tomatoes and bakes tasty dishes like cornish hen stuffed with spinach and mushrooms to keep the frail, spry woman going.

Violet said she still cooks, but admitted that she can scarcely lift a pan.

“Max takes pretty good care of me,” she said.

But, in looking for answers to Grudzinski’s concerns, you can’t fault the busy schedules of the contractors, the students and the other volunteers — least of all Maria Yuhas, a high school engineering instructor who inherited the role of project manager when Wells moved.

Folks in town told me Yuhas has put in countless hours, rounding up students, scheduling volunteers, recruiting new donations, working with drywall, even clearing away some of the expired canned food and clutter in Violet’s old home.

“We had targeted July to get the job done, but we’re dealing with all volunteer labor here,” Yuhas said.

So what has caused the delays? The students in the trades group had to finish a project for a paying customer before they could get the framing done at Violet’s house. A local contractor who was doing the siding had to wait three weeks while one of his suppliers decided whether he could donate materials. Stuff like that.

City building inspector Bob Hendricks, who has been to the site eight to 10 times, said the setbacks have been fairly routine. “But it’s unfortunate the guy who was the mastermind of all this is no longer in the community,” he said. “He was the one handling the financing, and now the financing is pretty slim.”

But, Yuhas assured me, in the next couple of weeks the walls inside the new home will be textured and painted, and then the kitchen cabinetry can be installed and the millwork finished.

Folks in town, she said, have been incredibly generous, covering just about everything still needed. She is pushing for a November completion.

Hendricks told me he believes the work will go quickly now that the drywall is finished. No one in town wants Violet to worry about spending another winter in her broken-down house, where last winter she feared she might freeze.

But if you spend time talking to Violet, you realize there’s another kind of urgency feeding some of the angst.

She told me once that it had been five years since she fell trying to get to a local cafe during an ice storm and Max came to her rescue. It was actually December 2010.

Violet easily recalled how her husband was in Paris on the day of the French liberation in World War II and how he managed to make “the boat” on his way home from Korea. But she said she didn’t know why she doesn’t receive survivor benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

She told me she has a daughter in Indianola and a son in Missouri she hasn’t talked to in years.

To the best of Grudzinski’s knowledge, the resourceful woman makes do on less than $700 a month. She doesn’t receive food stamps, and she doesn’t get heat assistance. Grudzinski would like to become her friend’s paid caretaker under Medicaid, but Violet couldn’t tell her whether she receives Medicaid or Medicare.

In short, Violet needs more than a new roof over her head.

Last week, I called Rod Derringer, staff assistant for the director’s office at the VA benefits regional office in Des Moines, who promised to find help so Violet could begin receiving survivor benefits.

Roger Munns, spokesman for the Department of Human Services, directed Grudzinski and Violet to make an appointment at the DHS office in Dallas County to inquire about making Grudzinski her caretaker and accessing food stamps. Grudzinski also has vowed to fill out the paperwork to get Violet energy assistance come October, when it’s time to apply.

Yuhas told me she and the other volunteers know Violet may not have much time left, but they hope she will enjoy her new home.

Grudzinski hopes so, too, but she worries about the effect on her friend of the big move, when Violet’s longtime surroundings change. She hopes Violet will be comforted by the fact that she is still on her own property, with Kit the cat roaming about.

Violet told me last week that she worries about facing another winter if she can’t move, but she didn’t blame anybody for the delays.

“If nothing happens, I reckon I’ll still live in this house,” she said. “But I have a lot of hope.”

Lee Rood’s Reader’s Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Contact her at lrood@dmreg.com or by calling 515-284-8549. Read past reports at DesMoinesRegister.com/ ReadersWatchdog.